JessamynBook 82: Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. This was another of those "cat books." I loved the last one and did not care for this one as much. There was so much unspoken tension where I was like "JUST TELL THEM THAT THING" that it was a stressful read even though it's a gentle story of a (maybe depressed) woman in Japan who is not sure what to do with her life and spending time at a family-owned bookstore helps sort it all out.
Book 83: The Martian Contingency. I read the last book a while ago, so I'm not sure what parts of my feeling sort of "eh" about it were not remembering details from previous books and which were that, as an anxious person with Shit To Do, it wasn't fun reading about a Lady Astronaut who is anxious and has Shit To Do. It's about the 2nd expedition to Mars, with a permanent habitat on the planet and an orbiting space station above. A lot of "Why won't these people TALK to each other?" from me.
Book 84: Spent. I'm not always into anxious protagonists but I make a huge exception for this excellent book. Bechdel writes a graphic novel which is both about a fictionalized her but also has most of the cast of Dykes to Watch Out For, set against the backdrop of These Wretched Times both national and local. I saw a cameo of my congresswoman! I saw goats and seed art. The story is about Bechdel grappling with her fame, relationships, and trying to relate to the next generation of queer folk
Book 85: Vet at the Ends of the Earth. This is about a veterinarian from the UK who moves to the Falklands for work and then goes to more and more remote islands doing vet work. It's humorous and interesting and comes with a fair bit of history about the various locales (though not a lot of critique of their colonial legacy). I enjoyed the vignette-style recounting of meeting the world's oldest tortoise, troubleshooting a weird lamb disease, and searching for a lost dog in the island canyons.
Book 86: The Folded Sky. I like Elizabeth Bear's writing and I liked the past two books in this series but this one did not work for me. Another very anxious protagonist. Nearly constant assaults by space pirates who are two-dimensional unknowable opponents. A lot of that Momma Bear "Now that you've threatened my children I am REALLY MAD" posturing. There's a lot of interesting interspecies interactions and those parts are fascinating but was not enough for me.
Book 87: The Autistic's Guide to Self-Discovery. Sol runs a community for neurospicy folk and this is a very practical book on what it can be like to have autism diagnosed (or self-dignosed) later in life. He talks about his own experiences and shares a few stories from people he's worked with, suitably anonymized. While I don't entirely fit the criteria here, I'm also not what you'd call allistic so I read this with interest and think many people in the same boat could get a lot from it.
Book 88: The Mistletoe Matchmaker. This is another book in the Finfarran Peninsula series. I've liked the other two. This one had more of a "We're making a movie where all the actors can't be on set at the same time" vibe with a lot of plot lines happening at the same time but without a lot of overlap. And not much happens. And it's Christmas and there's a fete brewing. So not my fave of the series but it was enjoyable and a welcome balm from the angsty fiction I'd been reading.
Book 89: Alif the Unseen. Alif is the online name of an Arab-Indian hacker young man. After a breakup, he gets in way over his head trying to make a tool to make himself invisible to his ex (was she really his ex?) and has to involve some shady underworld/paranomal folk to help him get it sorted. He's being chased by someone powerful in the Dubai/UAE government who is also a highly capable hacker and spends some time in this world and... another. Lively and from a perspective I rarely see.
Book 90: The Lighthouse Keeper. This is a short book for children that I got as part of Library Thing's Early Reviewer program. It's translated from the Spanish and has a bunch of rhyming verses. The drawings are, as seen on this cover, pretty great. The verses are pretty simple but there is a short narrative about the job this man has and also he's got some sort of a thing going on with the moon. Highly enjoyable.
Book 91: Threadbare. This was more of a series of essays with some pictures that went with them (i.e. huge speech bubbles, not much storytelling in the images) than a graphic novel. It outlines, with footnotes, how the global fashion trade exploits women and transgender folk, obscures the lines between sex work and trafficking in order to maintain the status quo, and gives us shoddier goods at a much higher human cost. I wasn't on board entirely with all premises but was happy to learn more.
Book 92: Seeking. There is a longer story about why I ILLed a book of poetry from the 1930s all based on a postcard I found at a thrift store. I was pleased to get this book. I found Crabb's poetry to be pleasantly evocative, mainly about nature themes. The one about the library was, sadly, a paean to silence which was what you might expect for the time. Longer story about why I was looking for this book written up on my blog.
Book 93: The House. An elegant graphic novel with a lot of "show don't tell" going on in it. Three grown children of a man who has died come back to the house to clean it out and see what they might want to do with it. Each person reverts to type a bit, they're all very different, and the current time is juxtaposed with glimpses from their childhood or of their father doing various things. Sweet without being maudlin or telling you how to feel about any particular thing.
Book 94: Netherford Hall. I do not know how some books wind up on my TBR list. This was a Regency supernatural quasi-romance (maybe entirely romance, I am not familiar with the genre) which, if it sounds appealing, seems to be a good example of that genre. Not really my thing since there's a bit too much of that fantasy "Whose magic will outmagic the other?" but that is a me problem. The characters, nearly all women, are interesting and have depth and there's so much lovely description.
Book 95: Love You A Latke. I knew this one was a romance going into it. I liked the general themes of small town Vermont (though much of it takes place in NYC) trying to do something new for December and settling on a Hanukkah Festival run by the woman who operates the town's coffee shop. She has a frequent customer who she finds annoying but who helps her see the best in things. Schmaltzy, funny, sweet and predictable, it was nonetheless fun to be surrounded by Jewish/Vermont themes for a bit.
Book 96: Dreadful. What if you woke up in a ruined laboratory which was sort of on fire and you had no idea who you were? This is about a Dark Wizard who got his memories stolen after he captured a princess but before he could do whatever dastardly thing he had planned for her. There's a longer story about other Dark Wizards and the townspeople and a few goblins who act a little bit as comic relief. This book isn't laugh-a-minute funny but it is a humorous look at this situation and I liked it.
Book 97: A Short Bright Flash. A history of the Fresnel lens and lighthouses generally. Picked this up when I was idly browsing library shelves and it was much more interesting than I expected. French engineers! Civil War lighthouse attacks! World War II German lighthouse occupiers! Did you know that many Fresnel lenses floated in vats of mercury and this is believed to be why lighthouse keepers have a reputation for being drunk and/or crazy? Read this book, learn more.
Book 98: Shroud. Tchaikovsky writes a lot of books and I like most of them. This one is a bit of a first contact story which has a LOT of discussion (both show and tell) of alien intelligence and a dystopian future in which people have left earth and only exist in corporate-run resource-exploitation schemes mowing down whatever is in their path. It's got a lot of spookiness to it and also left me with a lot of questions since it ended somewhat abruptly. Ripe for a sequel.
DNF: The Age of Video Games. This graphic novel about the history of video games should have been right up my alley. But it was too meta for me--the illustrator and writer are also characters in the book--and, for a history, it jumped around all over the place. I knew a lot of the raw facts from other books. I read through the first few chapters and was just not interested in keeping up with it.
Book 99: Homebody. This is a nice, simple non-fiction graphic novel by trans non-binary graphic novelist Theo Parish talking about their lifelong journey towards figuring out how to be at home in their body. It's matter of fact, very well-illustrated, talks mainly about who was supportive (and not who wasn't) and drills down a little into some topics like deadnaming and gender identity vs. sexual preference. Ultimately it's a story of achievement and acceptance.
Book 100: Wash Day Diaries. Four young Black women, all friends, all living slightly different lives, care for each other and their hair in this series of vignettes about life in the Bronx. There's a lot going on and each woman has a different backstory and set of issues they are grappling with. It's lovely to see this collection of day-in-the-life that acknowledges that friendships can both be complicated but also deeply nurturing.
Book 101: The Impossible Fortune. Fans of the Thursday Murder Club will likely enjoy this one. It's got all our favorites (& a few new ones) who are all doing their things as they try to figure out why someone was trying to kill Joyce's son-in-law's best man. That guy disappears, his colleague gets killed, there's a lot of bitcoin in play and a few side quests and some tasty baked goods. Osman always thanks librarians in the acknowledgments, I will read these books as long as they are published.
Book 102: Automatic Noodle. This book is great just like everyone says. A group of sentient robots of various forms and previous purposes come into awareness in a shut down restaurant in the middle of San Francisco (itself inside of a seceded California). They do not have many rights, but they do have a few ideas and some plucky can-do attitudes. We get to learn more about each of them and watch them manage starting their own business in a culture that has a small but strong anti-robot bias.
Book 103: Enshittification. If you've read Cory's stuff here or elsewhere, you will know the skeleton of this book. This is a full treatment, including all the ancillary parts that go into how it happened and a big chunk of stuff at the end about what could possibly be done. I'm not quite the target audience for this book because I may know the topic too well, but it was good to have a refresher and learn more neologisms like enshitternet &c. Accessible to more than just the usual suspects.
Book 104: The Heist of Hollow London. I really enjoyed Robson's other book that I read and looked forward to this one. It's a complicated future where some people are nats (natural) and others are made (i.e. cloned) and the people who are made can be bought and sold like property. Arlo and his friend Drienne go from being brand ambassadors to being purchased to participate in a heist which winds up being not at all what it seems. A lot of little side stories give this novel some good depth.
Book 105: Six Centuries of Type & Printing. I am interested in the history of printing and this short and beautifully made short book was a nice little introduction to the various machines which transfer ink to paper to enable us to read it. It got a little in the weeds for me occasionally (complex descriptions of how a printing system worked which were hard for me to visualize) and there's a LOT of vocabulary. Overall, glad I read it and Glenn was definitely the guy to write this.
Book 106: Blades of Furry. I will read most graphic novels which come in to my library, most of which are YA. Which is how I wound up reading this queer, furry, paranormal ice skating story. It was really well done. The story moves along, you don't need to know/care about skating. The characters are believable, the tension isn't overdone. My only complaint was that I somehow overlooked at this was just "volume one" and I read 500 pages of it just to have it be "to be continued..."
Book 107: Hunter's Heart Ridge. This book didn't cohere quite as nicely as the one which preceded it. It was a very complex story about men who go to a hunting lodge, one of their party gets killed. There's a "we're all stuck here" snowstorm. Another member gets killed. The power goes out. That sort of thing, with a side story involving people who I knew and liked from the last book but which barely overlapped with this plot. I like mysteries which take place in VT but this one was just okay.
Book 108: Go Home, Ricky. I'm not sure how I found this book, perhaps the cover? It's about a young wrestler on a low-end circuit who gets injured and has to figure out what his life is about, washed up from the one thing he loved in his late 20s. He doesn't know who his dad is. He copes poorly with relationships. He gets along well with his mom. Each chapter is one little vignette about his life. There is very little plot. Kwak is a good writer, but I was hoping for more story, less character.
Book 109: The Courage to be Disliked. A friend suggested this. I am a person who could probably stand to be more disliked (I am a pleaser, it's not always in my best interests). This book is about Adlerian psychology seen through the eyes of Ichiro Kishimi, a noted Adlerian in Japan. It's set up as a series of Socratic interactions between a young librarian (I know!) and an experienced psychologist. I learned some things, had some critiques, not sure if it helped, but it was a fresh perspective.
Book 110: The Killer Question. A mystery that has a pub quiz at or near the center of it. You'd think this would be right up my street and it mostly was, but it's a bit of an epistolary tale, told in two general temporal "chunks" through text messages, emails, newspaper articles and transcribed audio recordings. I did not mind this, and it was an interesting story, but there was a little too much of "Oh wait these are out of sequence WHEN did that happen?" for me but otherwise a great read.
Book 111: The Ghost Fields. These Norfolk-based mysteries follow a fairly predictable formula but I'm liking them just fine. This one is about an airman from WWII who gets dug up in his plane but then it turns out he'd been shot, not crashed. A lot of "Which personal from the mostly-insufferable rich family did it?" pondering while the police officer who starts out "heavily pregnant" in the beginning does, of course, have her baby at a pivotal moment.
Book 112: Design is a Job (second edition). You probably know Monteiro if you are a designer or work with designers. He is a "tell it like it is" guy who is in favor of strong unions, good jobs, unlearning some of the bad stuff from design school and making a lot of angry jokes many of which are very funny. I am not a designer, but a lot of his information is pretty applicable to anyone who freelances or has to work with clients at a thing they know more about than the client. Good reading.
Book 113: Space Brooms! This was a fun romp which can be loosely described as the goings-on of a space station janitor who happens on an extremely valuable piece of tech while he's working. He works with some new friends to try to sell it while everyone in the universe tries to get it from him. A lot of fun ambisexual characters and settings. Some out-of-place-seeming extreme violence. Part of it takes place on the Moon. Overall a fun read and tees up a sequel pretty well.
Book 114: The Woman in Blue. This is a series that I've been enjoying. This particular story is about religious pilgrims and the idea of complicated families. This is both true of the central mystery and true of the characters you get to know and the things they do to try to be good people. One of the better ones I've read in this series
Book 115: The Chalk Pit. This is the next in this series, about some rough sleepers, and then some pretty white ladies, who go missing. Some bones are discovered in an underground location where they're building a new chichi restaurant. Ruth the forensic anthropologist winds up working side by side with Nelson. There's a lot of character development (and discussions of empathy for unhoused etc) and I felt like it was a strong addition to the series.
Book 116: Black Ops and Beaver Bombing. A book by two naturalists discussing the decline of some animal populations in Britain. These range from beavers (where people sneakily rewild them) to hedgehogs (so many hedgehog hospitals) to red squirrels (outcompeted by greys) and one kind of seal. They visit locations trying to spot these animals, and discuss the political issues involved with trying to save one species when balanced against others. Some good humor and trivia along the way, quite good
Book 117: Thriving in a Relationship when You Have a Chronic Illness. This was a LibraryThing Early Reviewer book (self help is one of the categories I am interested in). I don't have a chronic illness per se, but I think for any couple who is aging together you hit a time when there are more medical things than maybe when you met. This book is mainly talking about chronic stuff for people of any age. It has a self-published feel to it but has very solid ACT-based advice.
Book 118: The People's Library. I will read any book about a library. This one was particularly good. A near future tale of book-type libraries being shuttered in favor of "check out an AI author/personage" experience-based libraries. But something's up. The "virtus" as they're called are escaping. And things may not be what they seem. Our protagonist is an introverted book-loving African American librarian with synesthesia (TAKE MY MONEY) who is trying to figure out what's up and make it right.
Ashe Dryden šš¼āāļøššāā¬@jessamyn I love books about libraries and books! Iām planning on sharing this soon for a Friday book recs:
- The Library Book by Orlean
- The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Hoover Bartlett
- The Professor and the Madman by Winchester
- Dark Archives by Rosenbloom
- How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Yu
- The Midnight Library by Haig
- The Sentence by Erdrich
- The Book Collectors by Minoui
- The Library Book by Orlean
- The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Hoover Bartlett
- The Professor and the Madman by Winchester
- Dark Archives by Rosenbloom
- How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Yu
- The Midnight Library by Haig
- The Sentence by Erdrich
- The Book Collectors by Minoui
@Ashedryden Great. I've got a subcategory on my book blog that is just library stuff. You seem to have hit the high points but there are a few in there that are pretty good.
@jessamyn what a great blog!